Sharing files using Samba -- NMDB not running?
 

Okay,

I recently installed Mandrake 9.1 on the laptop I'm using right now. I like it, even if it's old, it was free. I don't really like much of the crap they're using today anyhow. That's not the point.

I found that I already had Samba installed. What I want to do is sit on my porch and access the MP3 files on the tower in my bedroom. Once I found out it was already installed, I typed smb://BlkBeauty/ in Konqueror. It brought me to a page that listed the shared FOLDERS on that computer. So I click on the mp3 folder, all excited and joyful, and, alas, the files do not load. The "K" gear thing just spins and spins for eternity.

So I figured that since this is Mandrake 9.1 and that computer is running XP Pro, I may need to update Samba. So I have updated it. I've configured it as well. First I just edited smb.conf and then I tried using SWAT. SWAT helped me because it told me that NMDB is not running.

Do I need NMDB running to access the files? It seems that I probably do. So how can I make it run?

I hope someone here can help me, and even if they can't I appreciate any efforts.

moonpunter

map the XP folder
 

You should map the XP directory in Linux:

%% create a directory under /mnt called let's say /mp3

mkdir /mnt/mp3

%% map the XP mp3 directory to the /mnt/mp3 directory just created

[root@lnx root]# cd /bin
[root@lnx bin]# mount -t smbfs -o username=<XP username>,password=<XP password> //XPname/mp3 /mnt/mp3

You need both nmbd and smbd running in daemon mode (-D), to find out if they are try top or the ps command with -aux for the options.

If all else fails try the killall command and restart both processes by hand like this:

nmbd -D
smbd -D

Also it may be help full to view the contents of your smb.conf file to make sure that samba is properly configured, and make sure you have a user in the smbpasswd file that matches one on the XP machine, (same password and all).

And lastly check the XP box to make sure that netbuei is installed and running.

Futhermore,
Check the log files /var/log/samba. It might provide a clue why nmbd is not running.

A quick note of thanks to the contributors of this thread! After much aggro, I finally got Samba sharing files correctly on my config (RH8 on one box and XP on another) and I can now effortlessly access both system's files from either the windoze or linux file managers.
One thing I have noticed is that as long as you have the xp fs mounted in fstab, you don't need the smbd/nmbd daemons running to access windoze files from linux. You do seem to need them for doing it the other way round though.